Brainwashing and the persecution of "cults".

While the presence of authoritarian "cults" in our midst raises a number of social control and "law and order" issues, current controversies over cults contain substantial elements of mystification. "Brainwashing" is an inherently subjective metaphor that is used as a rationale for persecuting unpopular movements and defining religious converts as nonautonomous zombies who can be coerced for therapeutic purposes. While "coercive persuasion" models do have some heuristic value for the analysis of indoctrination in some authoritarian groups, assumptions regarding the alleged destruction of the "free will" of converts and the status of authoritarian religiosity as a medical pathology are not warranted.